


The Scent of You

by Josey (cestus), junko



Series: Shattered Souls [6]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 20:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cestus/pseuds/Josey, https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The separation of Zabimaru and Renji is set to begin, has Urahara really foreseen all the possible complications?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scent of You

**Author's Note:**

> This is a canon divergence that takes place after the Aizen’s betrayal and before the Bount Arc.

For politeness's sake, Kisuke averted his eyes from their discussion. For science's, he fluttered cheerily when they'd finished and said, "Excellent decision, Abarai-san. Please enter your gigai and take your place on the other platform."

You could have moved mountains with the obvious weight of Abarai's resolve as he did as instructed. Kisuke watched him with more than a twinge of guilt. It was a strange feeling, not one he was used to, and it left him a little tentative as he began flicking switches and setting things in motion. The actions were familiar, reassuring and he soon fell into the rhythm of it. Emotion took a back seat and science came to the fore.

The domes dropped to head height, the emitters around their bases flashing into action profiling the resonance field needed to isolate Abarai's reiatsu from Zabimaru's. Kisuke split his attention between the readouts and his subjects. Zabimaru was standing hip-shot, her arms crossed under her breasts and her gaze averted, staring at something on the opposite side of the room to Abarai. She needn't have bothered. He wasn't looking at her. He had his chin on his chest and was glaring fiercely at the ground as though daring it to make the wrong move. Unarmed now that he was in his gigai, he held his fists clenched at his sides, the veins in his arms pumped and bulging. Kisuke could see the struggle he was having to keep his breathing regulated and his reiatsu fluctuated wildly. Understandable, given the emotional upheaval, but annoying. It was going to make the process much more difficult than it needed to be.

He'd help if he could, as much for the experiment's sake as for theirs, but for once Kisuke was at a loss as to what to say. If Zabimaru had not been so insistent, he might well have pulled the plug on the entire proceeding, such was the depth of Abarai's unhappiness. He wasn't in the habit of thrusting things upon people if they really didn't care for them. It made him feel somewhat dirty. He buried the feeling deep along with any misgivings and carried on.

The resonance field monitor gave a off-key ting and Kisuke quickly turned his attention back to his equipment. Despite the liveliness of the readings and how minute the variance of the spectrum between the subjects, he had been able to establish a standard deviance pattern that shouldn't destroy too large a measure of either's reiatsu. Excellent. 

"If you could stay as still as possible for the next step," he called out. "And Abarai-san, try not to flare, it would be most helpful."

Abarai flinched very slightly but his reiatsu calmed. His rank was obviously well deserved, Kisuke thought, not for the first time.

"You might feel a slight tingling. That's merely the resonance generators kicking in, nothing to worry about." Kisuke flicked the switch and the emitter array emerged from the floor between the two platforms. It looked a little like an a series of high end speakers, an image re-enforced by the whine that, though quiet, rose rapidly in pitch until it faded with a pop to the eardrums that made Kisuke swallow and shake his head slightly. Yet another wrinkle in the technology that he'd have to iron out if this was to become a regular thing.

 _An unlikely occurrence, I would think. The whole experience looks quite unappealing._

Along with Benihime's voice came the sensation of her leaning over his shoulder and long slender fingers drifting over the dials and knobs in front of him.

 _Please don't do that,_ Kisuke said. She couldn't actually interact with anything but he knew from experience how distracting it could be. _I'm at a very crucial stage-_

 _You always are._

There was an unmistakable pout in her voice now. Kisuke tried to ignore it, keeping his focus firmly on the readings as the actualised resonance field began to intensify, teasing apart strands of reiatsu as it did so and sending them whipping back to the soul who'd generated them. 

Finer and finer, fewer and fewer. Progress was as rapid as Kisuke could make it and still have it painless. But painless didn't mean pleasant and neither Abarai nor Zabimaru looked comfortable. Long strands of platinum blonde hair stuck to Zabimaru's arms and chest where the gigai was reacting to her discomfort by breaking into a sweat. And Abarai had his hands braced on his thighs as though he was about to throw up at any moment.

_They will not be able to take much more._

_I know._ Hand hovering over the cut switch, Kisuke's gaze flew from dial to subject and back again, gauging and monitoring, pushing the boundaries of what could be done because if he didn't remove enough, this next stage-

"Argh!" A cry of distress erupted from Zabimaru. Kisuke drove his hand onto the switch and the domes dropped just as Abarai lunged for her. He slammed up against the sealed barrier and Kisuke knew the second the full effects of the separation kicked in. Thankfully the domes not only sealed away reiatsu, they were also soundproofed, as Zabimaru bellowed in terror and Abarai rammed his fists against the dome in repetitive pointless protest, cursing at the top of his voice, before sinking to his knees in silence.

Kisuke leaned heavily on the bank of monitors waiting for his own pulse to slow, his own stomach to settle. That had been a lot worse than he'd thought it would be. Had his calculations been off? That final cut should have alleviated the pain, not caused more. Where had he gone wrong?

Benihime wrapped herself around him, calming and easing his fears. He let her, falling into her embrace and for a moment into her world. 

Cushioned in silk, he lay against her as a child by its mother, held safe and warm, protected from anything that would do him harm. Even himself.

 _If I'd done it too soon, it might have killed them,_ he whispered after a moment. _But I didn't think it would be so bad._

_They will survive it,_ Benihime replied, her lips moving against his hair. He lifted his head so he could see her and she brushed the bangs from his forehead. As always her face seemed occluded by the paint she wore. Kisuke looked beyond it, beyond white skin, rosebud lips and heavy black brows, to eyes that burned like windows into a phoenix’s heart. Breath that carried the scent of hot steel flowed over his face and she murmured, _But watch them closely. They were very deeply entwined. More-so I think than many others._

 _Which would explain why he achieved bankai so early._ And why he was so powerful. Damn it! Kisuke felt like kicking himself. He'd allowed for captain level reiatsu but not for the implications of it. 

He pushed away from the equipment and hit the raise button for the domes. They'd hardly cleared the ground before Abarai had squirmed under both and had Zabimaru in his arms, holding her curled against his chest.

Kisuke watched in silence, not allowing himself to look away. It was punishment of a kind. Knowing what he'd taken away from them and knowing how he would feel if it happened to him. 

Did the same thing happen to non-shinigami souls, he wondered? He'd always assumed that the high mortality rate in Mayuri's subjects was as a result of the extrusion process, but perhaps it was the severing instead. A zanpakutō was at least partially separated from the other half of the soul. An ordinary soul was not. They would be as deeply enmeshed in each other as Abarai and Zabimaru. Perhaps even more. 

Ah, what he would have given for Mayuri's detention to have gone more smoothly. If they could have retrieved that one girl who'd survived, what answers she could have provided. Now all he had was this.

The chatter of the printer broke the silence. Kisuke turned away to reach for the print-out. However uncomfortable for all concerned, at least the experiment had produced valuable data. Combined with what he knew from Mayuri's work and his own research on the mod-souls, he stood a good chance of progressing the field quite substantially for the first time in a century and half.

#

Renji could feel the body cradled in his arms―the heat of Zabimaru’s flushed skin touching his, the sound of her ragged breathing, the smell of her sweat, the pressure of her arms crushing his ribs, the tickle of her thick, long silver-gold hair where it brushed his arms and nose―but he was numb. Empty.

She was making a keening sort of whine, like a wounded animal. It should hurt him to hear her distress, but he felt nothing. 

His body, at least, comforted her automatically. Hands stroked her back. His lips moved, saying her name over and over and over, as if he could call her out… release her. “Roar,” he heard himself murmur. “Roar, Zabimaru.”

“I’m here, Renji.” She pulled her head from his chest to look him in the face, her wild green eyes wide and wet.

His own eyes were dry. Perhaps it was some residual reaction from the operation, but his head felt floaty, almost like he had a head cold. It was as if he was looking through someone else’s eyes, while standing far, far away. “Oh,” he said to her worried look, “Yeah. Right.”

Some sensation was starting to return, though mostly just dull, throbbing pain. His muscles ached where he’d clenched them, and he must have pulled something deep in his core, because his stomach felt tight―like he’d done too many sit-ups or crunches without warming up.

Renji flinched when Zabimaru reached up to touch his face. He hadn’t been expecting it, and the intimacy caught him off-guard. If his reaction bothered her, she didn’t show it. Instead, long-boned fingers slowly traced the line from his forehead to his jaw, gently, soothing, like a lover. “You still in there?” she asked.

 _No,_ he wanted to say. _There’s no one home here. All the fire is burned out. Ash in the wind._

“Yeah, I’m here,” he said instead, trying to shake off this drifting, disconnected feeling. “But you’re not.”

“Mmmmm,” she replied, though it sounded more like a thoughtful growl.

Strangely, that was the thing that teased a smile out of him―maybe the edges were a bit too raw and toothy, but it was a genuine emotion at least. “Heh,” he said, rubbing her head playfully. “There’s my Zabi.”

She looked ready to bite him, which only made him laugh harder. 

Their happy sounds made Urahara look up from the print out he’d been absorbed in reading. He nodded at them as though pleased… or relieved. He tipped his hat up slightly with his hand to ask, “How are you feeling?”

“Weird,” they admitted simultaneously. 

Urahara waited, clearly expecting more details. Renji looked to Zabimaru, who shrugged. She leaned back into him in a kind of head butt, and buried her face into his shoulder. So, he absently petted her hair and said, “I thought my guts were going to drop out of me at one point, right there near the end. Oh, and I made about a million plans to kill you for hurting my Zabimaru. Still entertaining quite a few, honestly.”

The words were right but the feeling was wrong: more like a snake than a dog―no snap or bark--just quiet, patience, and venom. 

Maybe it was the complete deadpan, but the last part made Urahara blink and hurriedly scribble something down on his clipboard. Renji hoped the note read, “set up defences around bed,” because he was surprised just how seriously he was considering slitting Urahara’s throat in the middle of the night and watching as the blood spread out like a crimson cloak around his pale, lifeless body. 

“Yes, and then we’ll feast on his entrails,” Zabimaru whispered into his ear with a dark chuckle that made Renji bark out a cold laugh.

It was nice to know she still knew what he was thinking.

“Well, I suppose that’s only natural,” Urahara was saying, oblivious to their quiet exchange, though he did seem to be watching them warily out of the corner of his eye. He certainly kept his distance, staying well behind all the knobs and dials and flashing lights of his equipment. “Now, if you would just stay in your gigai for twenty-four hours to stabilize, Abarai-fukutaichō, that would be lovely. And, of course, you can’t leave yours, Zabimaru-san, until you’re ready to re-bond.”

Then, Urahara seemed to turn back to his work. Renji supposed that their cue to leave, but he didn’t have the energy to get up. He still felt drained and washed out. The only thing that felt right was clinging to Zabimaru, stroking her hair, feeling her breath on his skin. 

She seemed to be in agreement. If anything, she tucked herself up tighter, nearly crawling completely into his lap, and pressing her hand against his chest as if needing to feel the dull thud of his heart against her fingers.

Fingers… they should be powerful clawed tiger paws. Gods it was a wonder he was ever able to shove her into this tiny doll. 

“Do I smell right?” she asked quietly, worried.

“No,” he told her. The body she inhabited no longer stunk of death and rot, but neither could Renji detect the wild musk of animal fur. There was a strange tang of newness on her, like the distinctive smell of a newborn. “Do I?”

“Oh yes,” she purred, rubbing her nose against his chest, almost like a kiss. She pulled back again in order to catch his gaze. There was a frightening, sharp hunger in her bright green eyes when she said, “I would feel a lot better if you marked me.”

“What?”

Zabi’s brows crinkled. Then she leaned in close to his ear again, and nipping the lobe between sharp teeth, snarled, “Mark me. Claim me. Bite my neck and possess me.”

Something deep and needful rumbled through Renji and he answered her by taking her face in his hands and driving them to the floor with a hungry, bruising kiss. 

As they tore away the clothes that separated skin from flesh, Renji didn’t even care that Urahara seemed to turn a few more dials and flick several switches before gathering up his research papers and quietly leaving the lab.

#

She screamed and yowled beneath him, but, suddenly stilled when he bit her neck hard as he came inside her.

#

It was better to smell the same, Renji decided. Zabimaru always did have the best instincts. Their sweaty bodies tangled together grounded him, made him feel more… human, alive… real. The coldness retreated wherever she touched him. When their heartbeats were synchronized and their breathing perfectly matched, he wasn’t nearly so empty.

Despite what Urahara had said, they still had the residual ability to communicate silently. Renji hadn’t had to explain what he’d needed at all. It could only have been more perfect if Zabimaru could have found more ways to get inside him. Being completely surrounded by her was almost the same, but not quite enough to completely satisfy the crawling aching hunger. At least her creativity was the wicked stuff of his most private fantasies. 

Yeah, she knew all his secrets. Intimately.

But next time Renji wouldn’t put up with Urahara’s bullshit. He’d insist on both. One of each would have been a far better match. Then one could fill him, while he filled the other. That was how it should have been. This was good, but only half of what Renji needed.

Renji stretched out, yawning. He noticed the lights were still on and Zabimaru’s tank top was flung over some monitor or something. Renji chuckled. Urahara was going to have some interesting ‘research material’ to review. 

He tapped Zabimaru on the shoulder. She woke instantly at his nudging. “Hey,” he said, capturing her lips again. “You think Urahara is ace? Or is he going to get a thrill watching us?”

“He wants you to think he’s an asexual, rational scientist,” she said, her fingers running along the tattoos on Renji’s chest. “He’s got the soul of a flaming queen.”

“Crimson princess,” Renji corrected, though he was smiling. “Anyway, if not ace, I say bi.”

“Omni,” she agreed. “He does have a basement full of bodies―all sexes, all sizes, all… ages.”

“Creepy,” Renji admonished her lightly. “But I’m not going there. He doesn’t vibe predator.”

“Hmm,” she purred. “Not like you.”

He gave her a sharp smile and a playful slap on her ass.

“These aren’t mine,” she said ignoring his advances, and jabbing her finger into the tattoos on his torso and chest. She propped herself up on her elbow, her silver-gold hair spilling across his body. 

“I know,” he said, swatting her pointed finger from his face. “Not everything is about you, okay? I still think you should have red fur.”

She ran splayed fingers through the long, silken hair of the gigai, clearly admiring it, “A good match, however.”

Renji had to admit it was, as were the taut, perky breasts with their rusty areola. “I can’t get over you as a woman,” Renji said, reaching out to stroke curve and swell. “Your other form has the biggest set of balls I’ve ever seen.”

“Mmmm,” she said, her hand sliding down his stomach, to snake between his legs. “We have to be alike in some ways.”

Renji groaned as her hand continued to move, and suddenly he was ravenous again, desperate and clutching and aching.

#

"Anyone I know?"

When the voice spoke in his ear, Kisuke yelped and instinctively slapped at the monitor's off-button. Damn it where had _she_ come from? She was supposed to be in Soul Society and he hadn't felt the senkaimon in the training grounds open. 

He spun his stool round and took a stab at nonchalant. Not the easiest look for someone who'd just been caught watching what amounted to home-made porn. Yoruichi was perched on the work bench behind him looking as smug as only a cat could.

"Welcome home, Yoruichi-san," he said, "How nice to see you so soon. I trust all was well in Soul Society?" She'd ostensibly been there to check on the fall-out from the defections. Kisuke suspected smaller, dark-haired, motives.

"It's the same as it always is, full of people who couldn't find their asses with two maps and a bakūdo," she replied, starting to wash.

There was more, Kisuke could tell, it was the way she was licking her paw. When nothing was immediately forthcoming, he asked simply to get the agony over with. "And little Soifon? Still speaking to you, I hope?""

"If you really want to know, it was a good bit more than speaking." The smug grin turned Cheshire in proportions. Kisuke sighed silently and continued to play straight man, as it were. "Anything else you'd like to share?"

"Not with you," she said, hopping the distance between the two benches and flicking her tail in his face. "Anyway, from what I saw, you don't need details."

He really didn't. Nor could he ever imagine a time when he would. Soifon was not his idea of fantasy fulfilment. He preferred his women dominant, not paranoid, strung out and frustrated. Whatever Yoruichi thought, there was a difference.

"As I said, merely data from my latest experiment," he said, happy to change the subject.

"Right," Yoruichi replied. "Tell that to someone who doesn't know you."

Kisuke shrugged. If she didn't want to believe him there was nothing he could say to convince her. "Actually it was. That was Abarai-fukutaichō."

"I saw that. Who was the woman? The bits I could see didn't look familiar."

"That is where the science comes in." He flicked the switch on the monitor and rewound the video. As the image on the screen jittered past, he explained, "Just before you left last week, Abarai came to me with an unusual request. He wanted a gigai. For his zanpakutō."

Rendering Yoruichi speechless was a rare and wonderful event. Kisuke took a moment to bask before continuing. On the screen Abarai and Zabimaru entered the lab and the wrestling match with the gigai commenced. "I obliged, of course. I mean who wouldn't. Such an incredible research opportunity after all-."

"The same one that got Kurotsuchi locked up." When Kisuke fluttered at her, Yoruichi growled, batting at his fan with her claws out. "I'm serious, idiot. We're trying to rebuild bridges here. The last thing we need is word of illegal experimentation getting back to the wrong ears." Like her girlfriend's, Kisuke thought perhaps a little uncharitably.

"Not illegal," he qualified. "Even Mayuri's work was never categorised as illegal, simply potentially dangerous to Soul Society."

"Great, so-"

"And you're forgetting that Abarai-fukutaichō came to me."

Tail lashing, Yoruichi glared at him, her yellow eyes flat and angry. "Because they know you're the kind of idiot who never could say no when someone waved a juicy idea under his nose. I'm not helping you out if you screw it up again."

"I'm not going to, not this time." When she looked unconvinced, Kisuke outlined the plan as he understood it, and his strategy for dealing with the query Ukitake had thrown at him. 

By the end of his explanation, her ears had perked up a little and her tail had slowed to a sedate wave. "I still don't like it," she said, "but I'll give you that it fits the facts. According to my sources, Soul Society has sent a spy to Karakura."

Soifon was sharing that much? Kisuke was impressed. Mind you, having experienced Yoruichi's idea of pillow talk before, perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that the captain of squad two was spilling the beans like someone had a knife to her throat. From what he remembered it was a little like discovering the ephemeral nature of one's mortality in the eye of a hurricane.

"And he'll be returned to them in better health and condition than he arrived, complete with documentary evidence," Kisuke assured her. 

"He'd better be." She glared again and then sighed, long and heavy. "Just try not to do anything too stupid, all right? I'd miss you if they did decide to take you away."

"Even now you have her back?" he couldn't help but ask. He wasn't jealous, not really. What he and Yoruichi had could never be touched by the likes of Soifon. 

"Even so." She pushed her head against his chin, rumbling a purr as he smoothed a hand down her spine and up her tail. "Idiot."

"Hm," he hummed in reply, rubbing his face in her fur.

Later, after she'd gone, back to Soul Society and back to Soifon, he returned to his lab and the recording, sitting wrapped in a blanket and sipping green tea as he studied the couple's most intimate moments on his screen. He had watched it so many times by now that the eroticism had mostly worn off. 

_They are still beautiful,_ Benihime observed. 

_They are,_ he agreed, for how could he not. They were indeed beautiful, in the same way as tigers were beautiful, sleek and wild and dangerous. Still something was bothering him. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

He flipped over the raw data sheet and scanned down the readings one more time. The stressors on the system had been a magnitude above what he'd planned for. In truth it was remarkable the entire array hadn't spontaneously combusted. But it had worked. Both the subjects had survived, their reiatsu had been successfully isolated and they were both in their separate gigai, apparently none the worse for their experience. 

Despite Abarai's declared intention to kill him, Kisuke had to call the experiment a complete success. 

Why then did he feel as though he was missing something vital?

He turned back to the recording, hitting the fast forward button and watching as the couple sped through various sexual positions like badly rendered adult game avatars.

Finally Zabimaru ended up on top, her silver-gold hair cascading down her back as she moved. Kisuke slowed the footage to normal speed, watching passionlessly as Abarai thrust up into her, his fingers digging bruises into her hips, as Zabimaru's small hands caressed her own breasts. 

But it was not Zabimaru who caught his interest, it was Abarai. As Zabimaru cried out her climax, her eyes closing in her moment of sublime pleasure, Kisuke froze the image and zoomed in on Abarai as he stared up at her, and on his face which wore an expression more bestial than any Kisuke would expect to see on a sentient soul.

Beautiful like tigers, he'd said. Perhaps he'd been wrong. Perhaps the creatures he'd been thinking of were not quite so mundane.


End file.
